Palin goes back to the minors

5/29/12 7:00 AM EDT

Maggie and Emily write this morning on the new role Sarah Palin has carved out for herself in 2012 politics, picking the races she gets involved in more carefully and seeking out opportunities where she can have (or appear to have) disproportionate impact:

This year, Palin has become almost irrelevant in the context of the presidential race she once had a chance to dominate, and is seen more than ever as a sideshow by the Republican establishment. But after seeing her celebrity peak last year, Palin has settled into a role as something of a strong Triple-A political ballplayer, picking well on down-ballot races and earning credit as she goes.

If she jumps into the right streams, the ex-veep nominee’s backers will cite her endorsements as fresh evidence of her clout — even if she’s being carried by the tide. Yet her durability among the grassroots of the party, even with the tea-party movement diffusing in 2012, is clear.

“There is a vacuum on the right now, and at some point that’s an opportunity for someone, and it won’t be resolved in this summer or this fall,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “Sarah Palin has as much a claim to that as anyone right now…I think she has settled into her role as the power behind the thousands (of) thrones, instead of sitting on one.”

So far this cycle, Palin has backed four GOP candidates in their primaries, and two [Deb Fischer and Richard Mourdock] have won (the others are [Ted] Cruz and [Orrin] Hatch, who face voters starting today). Her support is guaranteed to generate headlines for the favored candidate, as she relies on her lengthy list of supporters to bring in an infusion of low-dollar donations from her grassroots list.

It’s a far cry from the 33 winning candidates Palin endorsed for House, Senate and governor in 2010, compared to the 20 who lost. The once-flush SarahPAC had just under $1 million at the end of the first filing quarter for 2012.